Its Sunday afternoon, and I finally have a few minutes to update my LJ. I flew into Orlando with my father on Wednesday. We checked into the hotel, which was very nice, and then went a block and a half to spend the afternoon at SeaWorld. We had a lot of fun there, although the shows definitely made it worth the trip. After that we crashed for the night, as it had already been a long day at 2000.

The next morning we went to the Kennedy Space Center for the day. It was well-suited to a day's visit, although the skies were overcast and the wind was a bit nippy at times. I should add to that that we were still in short-sleeve shirts -- the temperature never dropped below 65. Its more in relation to the 80+ we had been experiencing up to that point. We went on a bus tour for the afternoon, saw the shuttle stack on the launch pad, saw a Saturn V, and got to watch actual modules of the ISS being assembled in the Space Station Processing Facility. We also got a number of good tips for the trip in on Monday morning.

On Friday we dashed off to Epcot, which I have been to before but never actually visited while it was open to the public. There was a lot of fun material there, as well as "Mission: SPACE", the first ride I've been on that really made me motion sick. The ride puts you in an enclosed simulator that then proceeds to do full rolls on all three axes while you're watching a simulation of what the world looks like out the "front" of your spaceship. My inner ear was not a happy camper for that one. The GM Test Track was fun, though, as was Soarin', a hang-gliding ride.

Friday night was the scheduled launch of the Intelsat 14, a rocket we had seen on the pad at KSC. Since my Dad wasn't going to make it to the shuttle launch, we went out onto the golf course at the hotel at 1230 to watch it lift off. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed at 1233. Figures. Fortunately, I had my computer with me on the hotel internet, so I was able to get this information not too long after 0100, and we were able to pack it in. Fortunately for me, the problems seemed to be extensive enough that they didn't try the next day, which would've meant the STS-129 launch getting bumped to Tuesday, out of my ability to see it.

A few hours later, I drove my father to the airport, and a few hours after that, I went back to MCO to pick up kelizra. We got some Thai for lunch and went to SeaWorld (I got a year pass when we visited earlier that week -- they were the same price as the 1-Day.) Amusingly, when I went back to see the Whale & Dolphin show with kelizra, one of the animals didn't want to cooperate, so mid-show (in a show with no dialog), he had to come out and explain what was going on. Profoundly uncomfortable, that had to be, but he handled it well. We caught the Shamu show, got a stuffed orca for her dog, and packed it in for the night.

Today kelizra is off visiting another friend in the Orlando area, so I have an afternoon to do whatever I want. I haven't quite decided what yet, but I better get cracking -- daylight's burning, and I need to be to bed pretty early. My bus to the STS-129 launch leaves at 0600, and I need to get to the pickup point.

He missed some random spy satellite launch. The space shuttle mission took off today at 2:30ish and unless Bronzite vanished into the ether between the hotel and the observation site, he got what he came for. So all is well.